Expressive Arts | SoulCollage® | Creative Playshops

Flight Plan

We painted – silently, for hours at a time – into the wee hours of the morning. The canvas was turned many times, the colours layered and changed, and the lines, forms and images underwent numerous transformations before it told us it was done. The images remained hidden to us until the following morning, when with fresh eyes and some distance, they popped. “She Wants to Fly'” was birthed on the canvas and mirrored the birthing of new happenings in our lives.

Intuitive painting is like that. It’s a process of bringing form to images that arise from our dreams and daily lives – joining body, mind, and spirit in the act of creation. The blank canvas can be daunting, the tools unfamiliar, but the creative process asks that you trust – to listen carefully, connect with an inner knowing, abandon yourself to intuition, embrace mystery, move with spirit, and paint what is given to you. It’s a beautiful dance, this letting go and surrendering to an inner choreography that is gently, boldly, flowing and unfolding in you and through you.

One half of this 16 x 20 diptych hangs in my studio, the other in my friends home several hours away. ‘She Wants to Fly’ continues to speak to me – to both of us – a message of guidance and trust. The following quote was stumbled upon a few days ago and I’ve since re-read it several times, imagining it coming from the ‘voice’ of our painting…

“There’s more to you. It comes wrapped in your morning ache or late night howling, or through the desert of your non-eventful day & drying mouth when someone accidentally spills water. A drop falls on your lips and the next thing you know, you have become the ocean. A feather lands on your lap and suddenly your shoulder blades start itching at the thought of wings.

You wonder why and how it left you: the secret art of flying without wind, the whispered reassurance that the big old bloody universe is also small enough to make love through your pores, the supernatural ability to alchemize your crawling into dancing.

As soon as you try to give this longing a tired name like Happiness, or Love, or Nostalgia, it laughs and it evades you. As soon as you try to taste this water, it evaporates. I’m not a feeling, it shouts back, I am the source of you. I’m not the water, I’m the well. I’m not this or that bird, I’m the sky. It’s safe to drink and it’s your job to fly.” ~ Andréa Balt

A powerful message from a simple painting whose images and wisdom continue to reach out.